make sure you're happy every day of your life
by suitablyskippy
Summary: News travels fast in Kabukichou. Once the news of their second engagement starts spreading, Kyuubei and Tae are determined to travel faster. [Kyuubei/Otae (plus the entire cast), humour & romance & engaged-to-be-married fic; complete.]
1. Chapter 1

[ **A.N**.: Technically set sometime after the Dekoboko arc, since Tae's feelings on Kyuubei during that whole fiasco are a bit relevant, but really this fic is just set at any old time in Gintama's usual beautiful timeless timeline.]

.-.-.-.

* * *

Tae offers her hand instead of her arm when they step out into the street one morning.

Kyuubei looks at the hand, and then looks at Tae, and then looks at the hand again and says, "Tae-chan...?"

"No?" says Tae. Her voice is carelessly bright; her cheeks have begun to pinken, and it costs her effort it shouldn't cost to cast a smile Kyuubei's way – equally careless, equally bright. "I'm sorry, Kyuu-chan; I suppose I thought – or I suppose I didn't. I suppose I wasn't thinking at all. Please forget it, if you'd rather—"

Her fingers are curling back into their palm. Kyuubei seizes her hand before they can make it all the way, and says nothing, and slides a surreptitious, hot-faced glance Tae's way: _is this all right?_

And of course, it's quite all right.

It's far more than all right, in fact – except for the chaos of Tae's thoughts, which swim together into a single refrain that reminds her, over and over again, as though she could possibly forget, that the hand in her hand is Kyuubei's, and isn't it so much smaller than the last time she held it, and doesn't that soaring, vertiginous shock inside her stomach feel so much more startlingly clear now that no skulking Amanto cultists are holding the pair of them at cannon-point...

And Kyuubei's thoughts must have spiralled off into a similar crash from a different track, because what feels like a great gulf has opened up between them, both of them stiff-armed, both holding their hands away as though each of them holds not just a hand in their own but instead something terribly precious, and terribly dangerous, and terribly liable to explode if jostled.

Tae's not afraid of anything. She won't be afraid of this, either.

She takes a deep breath; she gives Kyuubei's hand a determined squeeze. "Last night," she says, as though there's nothing's out of the ordinary here at all, "last night, at the club – there was a man who smelled _so_ awful, Kyuu-chan, really, you wouldn't believe it; so I refused to serve him, of course, and he said he'd only come to the club in the first place so that I would serve him, which I told him was completely understandable but didn't change the fact he smelled really rather like the crusted arsehole of an unwashed tramp – in fact, that's exactly what he smelled like! _Just_ like Hasegawa-san, Kyuu-chan, if you can imagine that... And do you know what I told him, Kyuu-chan?"

Kyuubei thinks hard. "Did you tell him... he was disgusting, Tae-chan?"

" _Utterly_ disgusting," says Tae firmly. "And then I stamped on his toes and evicted him from the premises, and if he comes back it'll be on crutches, and if there's anything more pathetic than a man on crutches, it's a man on crutches whose crutches I've just taken from him and snapped in half and shoved sharp end first into whichever of his bodily cavities happen to be nearest at the time – which is precisely what will happen if he comes back, Kyuu-chan."

"Did you tell him that as well, Tae-chan?"

"That and more, Kyuu-chan."

"Good," says Kyuubei, and nods in quiet satisfaction. The great gulf between them has been shrinking, and now it's gone; the stiffness has been softening, and now it's gone. Their hands swing between them as easily as though they've already had a lifetime of practice at it – which, truthfully speaking, they have.

.-.-.-.

* * *

.-.-.-.

Really, the whole thing has been a little like a motorbike accident. A passing lorry, the impact, the skid, and in a heartbeat the world is seen from a whole new perspective: back-to-front and upside down, neck snapped in two by whiplash. A _little_ like that, but with fewer broken bones, or at least fewer broken bones for Tae herself – the number of broken bones in her general vicinity remains as constant as ever. In a heartbeat, something changed; in a heartbeat, the world shifted from _this_ perspective to _that_ perspective; in a heartbeat, all of Tae's tidily packaged and labelled and stored-away-for-winter feelings rose up from their store cupboard and demanded re-evaluation.

She loves Kyuubei more than anyone in her life except Shinpachi: that much, Tae has always known. But her heart flipped and plummeted and soared inside her without warning under the circumstances of the Dekoboko cultists, and in the weeks and months that have followed ever since, it's begun to seem as clear as sunlight that the quality of her love for the two of them is different; and it's begun to seem impossible that she ever could have lived without knowing it.

In a way, it isn't much different from the matter of stamping on her customer's toes. For all the shrieking and bawling, all the collapsing to the ground, all the useless clutching at the lumpen puree leaking from his sandals – for all of that nonsense, it had only ever been a playful warning, and toes are such insignificant body parts that their obliteration is hardly worth making a fuss about anyway. It wasn't as though anyone had ripped out his lungs and spat in the ruined cavity, after all. Tae had done only one very small thing, yet it had had a tremendously disproportionate effect.

The manager of Snack Smile had been less than receptive when Tae explained this to him afterwards, but her point remained: something very small can have a tremendous impact.

And it's the same as the way that Shinpachi, after just one bite of dinner every night, will immediately declare himself full to the brim and thoroughly satisfied. It's testament to the high nutritional value of Tae's cooking, of course, and its ability to satisfy a growing teenage boy even in miniscule quantities – but also to the fact that something very small can have a tremendous impact.

Something very small has recently had a tremendous impact on Tae. The very small thing was nothing more remarkable than Kyuubei's hand in hers. The tremendous impact has been the growing certainty that there _is_ nothing more remarkable than Kyuubei's hand in hers.

She knows how she feels. And she knows how Kyuubei feels, too – although if the peculiar way Tae has begun to feel her heart undergoing both terrible pulverisation and wonderful reconstruction every time she's near to Kyuubei _is_ how Kyuubei feels – if that's how Kyuubei has always felt when near to Tae – then it's a marvel, all on its own, that Kyuubei has managed to endure it and survive it for long enough that Tae is finally catching up.

It's been a very long time since either of them was anything but forthright about telling each other how they feel. It's been an even longer time since either of them was anything but forthright about telling each other what they want. Tae is very much in love, and Kyuubei is very much in love: from there, it's really quite straightforward.

.-.-.-.

* * *

.-.-.-.

"Really?" says Shinpachi.

"Really," says Tae.

"And you're – it won't be a problem, that Kyuubei-san is – I mean," says Shinpachi, who is looking down at his hands in his lap with great concentration, "well, all I mean is – are you happy, ane-ue?"

"I'm very happy, Shin-chan," says Tae, who is looking at her own folded hands with equally great concentration. There's a funny sort of light, fluttering feeling in her stomach that she hadn't anticipated, and that she hardly recognises; it could be nerves, though it's been so many years since Tae felt anything like it that it's difficult to be sure.

"And you've thought about all the – I mean, not just Kyuubei-san – but everything else," says Shinpachi, "all of it – is it what you want?"

"Do you mean the unimaginably vast Yagyuu fortune or the absurdly extensive Yagyuu property portfolio, Shin-chan? Because I'm quite happy to accept both of those, actually; and as for the network of influential celebrity contacts—"

"You know what I mean, ane-ue," says Shinpachi, in a voice that's growing thicker and thicker, and beginning to sound as though it's straining to stay stable under tremendous pressure.

Tae knows exactly what he means. "It's everything I want, Shin-chan."

"Okay," says Shinpachi. "I mean – good. I mean – that is, I mean—"

He bursts into tears. Tae's heart lurches up her throat with such a jolt it shakes her own tears free; she rubs the sleeve of her kimono across her eyes and laughs a shaky, hiccupy laugh. "Oh, you've set me off now, Shin-chan; what use are we, sitting here crying? What would Obi-one-niisama say, if he could see us now?"

Shinpachi coughs, or maybe laughs, and says: "'Soz to interrupt all y'all, but shouldn't you be training', probably."

"Shin-chan!"

He gives a laugh as shaky as Tae's own: which sets her off, which sets _him_ off, and for a while the east-facing veranda of the Shimura home rings out as much with helpless laughter as with tears. From the kitchen drifts the smell of that evening's pork, on its fifth hour in the oven and blackening nicely, by the scent of it – Tae keeps the smoke alarm disabled, for its oversensitive nose always interferes with the creation of her culinary wonders. Around the far corner of the house, in the training courtyard before the dojo, is the quiet, repetitive sound of footsteps: Kyuubei keeping busy, practising the Tendou Mushin style in the late morning sunshine.

"Just don't kick me out the house," says Shinpachi, when eventually he summons up the fortitude to break apart their hug. He removes his glasses and starts wiping them in his sleeve, which doesn't do an awful lot of good, since occasional tears are still plopping on the lenses even as he dries them off. "You know what Gin-san pays me, or rather what he doesn't, which is to say 'nothing' and 'anything'; and I'm _not_ moving in with those two... Do you have any idea what they keep under their sofa cushions, ane-ue?" he says passionately, and Tae shakes her head. "Me neither! They're crusted into place. I tried to get them up with a crowbar once so I could vacuum underneath, and it couldn't be done."

Tae assumes a look of appropriate distaste. It takes very little effort. "Oh, my."

"'Oh, my' is right," says Shinpachi darkly. He pushes his glasses back on. "Ah... does Kyuubei-san know we were having this conversation? Because I'd like to speak to both of you, if that's okay."

"Of course, Shin-chan. And you've nothing to worry about," says Tae, getting to her feet, "about the house, that is – I really shouldn't think anything much will change, except there'll be no more running into my room when you get nightmares—"

"Ane-ue! I never do that!"

"—and if there's a thunderstorm you'll have to be a big boy and stay in your own bed," Tae concludes, and Shinpachi's cry of outraged protest rings out behind her as she goes off to retrieve Kyuubei from the dojo.

Once retrieved, Kyuubei proves amenable to every one of Shinpachi's heartfelt demands. Shinpachi's heartfelt demands mostly consist of Shinpachi finding increasingly creative and emotional ways to rephrase _please make sure my sister is happy every day of her life_ , and which are all therefore mostly superfluous given Kyuubei's extremely vocal commitment over the years to the defence and protection of Tae's right to happiness; but Kyuubei has no objection to discussing Tae's right to happiness with Shinpachi in extensive detail, and Tae has no objection to listening in.

At last, though, Shinpachi runs out of steam. He nudges up his glasses and looks reflectively at the distant garden hedge, and says, "I really feel like I should have more to say, but... Well, I already know everything about you, Kyuubei-san, don't I?"

Kyuubei thinks intently for a moment. "My shoe size."

"Your... ah, what about your shoe size, Kyuubei-san?"

"Do you know it, Shinpachi-kun?"

"Well – no," says Shinpachi, "but I meant the important things, really – your character, and what you value, and your intentions towards ane-ue—"

"He thinks shoe size isn't important," Kyuubei reports to Tae, in an undertone.

"Oh, I _know_ ; isn't it dreadful? You'd think he'd never experienced a blister a day in his life, the way he carries on." Tae presses her fingers to her mouth, overcome by sentiment. "You'd – oh, Kyuu-chan! You'd almost think he's never known what it's like to wear shoes just a little too small!"

"Or a little too large," says Kyuubei, and seizes her hand with a look of blazing sincerity. "If your shoes are a little too large... then they can fall off, Tae-chan. And then if it's raining, your socks get wet."

"And if it's hot, the pavements can burn your feet."

"And if there's been a bar fight recently that ended with someone being thrown through a window and you pass by outside the bar, you could get glass embedded in your feet."

Shinpachi clears his throat. "Ah – Kyuubei-san? I was actually still—"

"And if the glass is dirty from lying in the filthy street," says Tae, eyes falling closed with the force of her emotion, "you could get an infection and have to go to hospital."

"Sorry, ane-ue, could I just—"

"And if the hospital is understaffed and a student nurse is assigned to you but mixes up your files, they might amputate your entire leg instead of removing the glass."

"Kyuubei-san? Excuse me – Kyuubei-san?"

"And if they amputate the wrong leg, then you'd have one leg but you'd still have glass embedded in your foot, and the infection would still be spreading."

"Um – ane-ue? Excuse me—"

"And if the infection reaches your heart, you could die."

Tae clutches Kyuubei's hand fiercely in both of hers, tighter than ever. "And if your files still haven't been sorted out properly, the hospital could notify the wrong family of your death."

"And if your files are never sorted out properly, then your real kin could end up never knowing how or where or when you'd died, or even _if_ you'd died, and they could spend the rest of their lives searching desperately for closure but never finding it, your disappearance haunting them with every breath they take, your memory like a ghost that's allowed them not a moment's peace since that first instant your too-large shoes slipped off."

The passion rings out in Kyuubei's voice. With a great effort, Tae manages at last to say, in a voice of tender wonder: "Kyuu-chan..."

In a voice of equal wonder, Kyuubei says, "Tae-chan..."

Tae brushes tears fiercely away with the back of her hand, and takes a deep breath; Kyuubei blinks hard a few times, and no tears come.

"Oh, don't mind _me_ ," says Shinpachi, sounding rather shriller than usual, "I've got all day if you want to keep going, I've certainly got _nothing_ better to do than sit around and wait for you to pay attention to me—"

"That's quite untrue, Shin-chan," says Tae, all business, "you could tidy your bedroom, for a start; you might be a teenage boy, but that's absolutely no reason for you to smell like it."

"I wear a shoe size two," adds Kyuubei.

"I'll bear it in mind, Kyuubei-san," says Shinpachi. His posture is beginning to sink into weariness – but then he suddenly sits straight, struck by thought. "Ah – does this mean Kyuubei-san will stop spending the night from now on?"

"Whyever would it mean that, Shin-chan?"

"Because," says Shinpachi, then looks uncertainly between them, "because you always say it's – indecent. Don't you? Before a wedding, for a bride and – and—"

"Groom," says Kyuubei.

"—groom," says Shinpachi, "to be sleeping together in the same house!"

"In the same room," adds Tae.

"In the same bed," offers Kyuubei.

"Exactly!" says Shinpachi. "You told me yourself, ane-ue, you've been saying it all your life – you always say it's indecent for an unmarried couple to—"

Tae places her hand soothingly on his knee before he can grow agitated enough to hurt himself. "Kyuu-chan and I have had sleepovers with each other since we were ever so little, Shin-chan; we've been having sleepovers almost since you were born, and certainly since you were pooping in your own pants and flinging your nice mushy vegetables across the dinner table. That's just what friendship is, for the two of us, and I don't see any reason to change that now."

"The reason," says Shinpachi, with dogged persistence, "is you're _engaged_! It's you who always says it, ane-ue, not me – sleepovers are different for couples due to marry, it's not the same as sleepovers between friends, it's _you_ who says—"

"Different how?" asks Kyuubei.

Shinpachi breaks off. He looks at Kyuubei for a moment, and then he looks at Tae, and then he looks back to Kyuubei and weakly says, "Ah – is that a serious question, Kyuubei-san...?"

"Very serious," says Kyuubei, very seriously.

"Then I, ah – maybe you should, I mean – you could talk about that with. With, um. With... with ane-ue. Oh, _God_ ," says Shinpachi plaintively, and casts another look of desperation Tae's way.

"Are you implying Kyuu-chan doesn't know about sex, Shin-chan?" Tae says curiously.

"Oh," says Kyuubei, surprised, and thinks hard for a moment. "Then I'm sorry, Shinpachi-kun. It's possible I misunderstood; I thought you were describing something that would _change_ due to our enga—"

" _Isn't_ it a nice day today, Kyuu-chan!" Tae cries at once, clapping her hand securely across Kyuubei's mouth, but she needn't have bothered: Shinpachi's wail of dismay drowns out the end of the sentence anyway.

.-.-.-.

* * *

.-.-.-.

"No," says Yagyuu Koshinori. He tosses his badger-striped hair back across a shoulder and ferociously puffs out his chest, and says, " _No_. Are you out of your mind, Kyuubei? Have you lost your wits? Do you not remember how this ended last time? – how _abysmally_?"

"I remember, Father."

"It's _Papa_!"

"With all due respect," says Tae sweetly, which is to say with only very minimal respect, and even that is rather more than due, "things are a bit different this time around, Papa."

"Don't _you_ call me Papa!"

"I'm sorry, would you prefer Father?"

"Neither! You're a great girl, Otae-san, you really are; and you'll make someone a wonderful wife some day. Someone with strong bones and a stomach of iron and an unbreakable skull – I'm sure of it. But you're as out of your mind as Kyuubei if you really think I'm going to let my only daughter marry a woman."

"I'm not your daughter," says Kyuubei.

"What are you, then?"

"I'm Kyuubei," says Kyuubei, unruffled as ever.

"Whatever you are," says Yagyuu Binbokusai, rousing himself from the unconvincingly feigned slumber he's maintained throughout the whole meeting so far, "you're still inheriting the whole estate after your dad kicks the bucket, aren't you?" He peels open one canny old eye, and flings out a liver-spotted arm in accusation. "Am I right? Kyuubei gets it all, am I right? Eh, Koshinori – you want the Yagyuu heir to be a pitiable bachelor, laughing stock of Edo? You want the Yagyuu heir living in wretched celibacy? You want to bring dishonour down on the family by condemning its heir to a lifetime of lonesome mastur—"

Yagyuu Koshinori rockets to his feet. "You think _I'm_ bringing dishonour down on the family!"

"Yes," Yagyuu Binbokusai says stolidly. He sits up on his tatami, hands resting on his knees. "You remember how crazy _you_ were in love, Koshinori? Because I do. I remember you nearly breaking your neck after the two of you went up on the roof to stargaze and fool around. You were in a cast for weeks, and you looked ridiculous."

"Papa!"

"Ah, just call me Father, won't you? Can you really tell me that you'd ever have let anything stop you from marrying her? If you'd come to me, and I'd forbidden it – would you have listened?"

"It's not the same," says Yagyuu Koshinori.

"I think it is," says Yagyuu Binbokusai.

"Grandfather's right, anyway," says Yagyuu Kyuubei, very quietly. "You can't stop me from marrying Tae-chan."

They go by Kyuubei's bedroom on their way out, without any discussion of the fact that that's where they're headed. It's plain inside, and a little stuffy for the fact that it hasn't been much lived in lately; Tae slides open the veranda doors and the cool breeze rustles in. They sit together and watch for the occasional flick of a koi's tail in the waters of the sprawling ornamental ponds.

"Shin-chan is an awful lot like our father, you know," says Tae, after a while. "After all the bluster, all he really cares about is the happiness of the people he loves, and our father was the same. I'm happy, so my father would be happy: I'm certain of it."

It takes a little while before any answer comes. In the meantime Tae's hand creeps across the narrow space between them; her littlest finger links with Kyuubei's, and at last Kyuubei lets out a great heavy sigh, sudden as an unexpected puncture. "I think I'm the same way, Tae-chan."

"I think I am too, Kyuu-chan."

"That Koshinori'll come around," announces Yagyuu Binbokusai, emerging from the crawlspace beneath the veranda with so little warning that it's fluke more than anything that saves him from receiving Tae's sandal stamped directly, reflexively, into his face. "He thinks it's all his fault, Kyuubei, you see – which of course it is in one way and isn't in another, since you're a grown adult now and you can make your own decisions, no matter what he and I may or may not have been responsible for doing to you in the past—"

"Grandpa," begins Tae, even sweeter than before, lifting her foot in preparation to stamp again—

"Ah, ah, Otae-san! You'll never be a part of the family if you can't learn how to pretend to look interested when I'm talking," says Yagyuu Binbokusai, and continues without pause: "Your father's got a lot of regrets, Kyuubei, and he's dealing with them about as well as a baby that's just recently realised it probably shouldn't have pooped in its nappy seventeen years ago if it didn't like the thought of having poop in its nappy for the next seventeen years. Not that you're poop, of course, Kyuubei; I regret that comparison much the way your father regrets the way he raised you. Ah – and much the way I regret that comparison, too. Listen: you two do whatever you like, and he'll come around. He _certainly_ will. I'll see to it," announces Yagyuu Binbokusai, and worms back out of sight beneath the veranda once again.

Silence reigns again, for a little while. The flick of an iridescent tail, out in the shadows of the ornamental bridge; the quiet shushing sound of the ornamental fountain; the far off calls of students training in the dojo.

At last, Tae says, "Your family seems to get stranger every time I see them, Kyuu-chan."

"I've seen them every day of my life and that's still true, Tae-chan."

.-.-.-.

* * *

.-.-.-.

"Eh?" Gintoki says. "Is this a re-run? Kagura-chan, check the calendar; we aren't due to start re-runs until July, but perhaps the studio's run out of money in the meantime and needs to stall for time while they slap together some new content. Or – wait," he says suddenly, frantically, swinging his boots from his desk and sitting forwards in a posture of barely controlled urgency, "wait – it _isn't_ July, is it? I know I slept late this morning, but I didn't think it was _that_ late – but then it wouldn't be the first time I've hibernated a hangover away; I missed most of last October after that old Madao fished some unholy liquor out of a dumpster in honour of my birthday—"

"Still March, Gin-chan," Kagura reports from the kitchen, "and no re-runs scheduled yet, either." She bounds back into the main room, half of a neon green plastic skeleton swinging merrily from one hand and bouncing along the floor behind her, and tosses it aside for Sadaharu to chew on. "Do you think they're just recycling old plots and hoping no one will notice?"

"Could be, Kagura-chan, it definitely could be. Aa, this is bad, this is _very_ bad..."

"But it's very trendy to be conscious of the environment nowadays – perhaps this recycling is to conserve energy. The studio's energy, so they don't have to worry about new material, and can worry about what they're having for dinner instead." She hops up to sit on the desk with the light-footed grace of two cement trucks colliding at full speed on the expressway. "What are _we_ having for dinner, Gin-chan?"

"Dinner? _Dinner_ , Kagura-chan? Given the situation, do you really think we have time to spare for such trivial matters as _dinner_?"

"Dinner isn't trivial, you good-for-nothing cheapskate! I'll show you _trivial_ , I'll show you a trivial head-wound—"

Tae coughs politely into her hand.

The screams cut off at once. Frozen in their tracks – she with a heavy marble paperweight upraised, he scrabbled halfway down the back of his chair – Kagura and Gintoki peer around at her.

"We'll buy you dinner," Tae says. "So there's no need to worry about it." At the identical wails of joy, she amends: "Just Kagura-chan, of course. It's important to take care of children, but an adult man can look after himself."

"He can't," says Kagura, "but don't worry about that, big sis." She tosses the paperweight aside and launches herself across the room, plummeting down at Kyuubei's other side with a conversational, "Yakiniku?"

"Aa, but this _is_ bad... It only means one thing when a series goes into unscheduled re-runs. First the quality of animation falls, and then the viewing figures fall, and then the contract falls _through_ and sometimes the lead producer falls too, from a high bridge or high window..." Gintoki rubs his forehead, gazing at the chaotic desk before him with a look of troubled woe, and then he seems to come to some decision: he shoves a pile of paperwork aside, claps his palms to the desk's surface, and gets to his feet. "Otae-san, Kyuubei-san. We'll take the job."

"What job?" says Kyuubei, and, "I'd prefer tonkatsu," adds Kyuubei.

"There is no job, Gin-san," says Tae.

Gintoki looks at her blankly from behind the desk. "No job?"

"Well, _I'd_ prefer yakiniku," objects Kagura, "and I said it first, so that means I'm the winner, and the winner gets to choose, and _I_ choose yakiniku."

Kyuubei thinks intently for a moment – then exhales in disappointment, head bowed. "A foolproof argument, Kagura-chan. You made your point in the way that only a true winner would."

"There's no job at all, Gin-san," says Tae. "I can promise you that."

"Then why are you here?" demands Gintoki. "Are you just here to rub it in my face that you're getting yakiniku and I'm not? Because an even better way to do that would be to actually take me to the meal, and then I sit there with you as you eat it, and then I also share in the meal, and then after I've eaten my fill but I greedily reach out to take the last strip of beef anyway, you stop me and say – no, Gin-san, this is for Kagura-chan – except then Kagura-chan gives it to lovable old Gin-san anyway, out of the kindness of her heart, and we all learn a valuable moral about friendship and sharing and buying me yakiniku. Wouldn't that be better?"

"I'd never ever ever times infinity plus one give you the last strip of beef, Gin-chan."

"You're a thankless burden and I've never once known the joys of fatherhood, Kagura-chan."

Tae raises her voice, more politely still. "This _isn't_ a re-run, Gin-san. It's exactly like I said, if you'd only listen and stop mistreating your hard-working employee: Kyuu-chan and I are engaged."

Once again, it's like the clocks stop: Tae speaks, and instantly Kagura and Gintoki are as frozen as unusually aggressive shopfront dummies. Slowly, slowly, each of them turns to peer Tae's way.

"To be married," says Kyuubei, just in case clarification was needed.

"To be married," Tae agrees. She rests her hand fondly atop Kyuubei's on the couch between them. "Thank you, Kyuu-chan."

"I wouldn't want any misunderstandings, Tae-chan."

Gintoki says nothing, though he's studying the pair of them with that particular bland, dead-eyed stare that tends to indicate there's far more activity going on inside his idiot head than usual.

It's Kagura who finds her voice first. "Do you actually _want_ to get married, boss lady?" she demands.

"I do, Kagura-chan."

"To Kyuu-chan?"

"Yes, Kagura-chan."

Kagura's leaning forward on the couch so she can jab her finger between them freely. This time, the jabbing stops at Kyuubei and stays there. "Do you want to because you _want_ to, or has Kyuu-chan dug up another tragic backstory to blackmail you with again?"

"Because I want to, Kagura-chan – and Kyuu-chan _didn't_ blackmail me before, you know; everything I did was of my own free will, even if—"

Kagura speaks over her. "Are you gonna cry about it as soon as you think we're not looking anymore?"

"Definitely not, Kagura-chan."

"Are you gonna cry about it at all?"

"Never, Kagura-chan."

"Hm," says Kagura. She narrows her stare and squints from Tae to Kyuubei and back again, in an ostentatiously suspicious manner that she more than likely picked up from the evening crime serials – and then she huffs again and sits back, arms folded. "That's all from me, then. Over to you, Gin-chan."

The lazy stare passes over them again, lingering; and then Gintoki closes his eyes and lets out all his breath at once, as though maintaining even half-hearted seriousness for all of five minutes has left him entirely exhausted. "Aa, I think that's all from me, too," he says, and when his eyes open again, he's smiling. "Congratulations, you two; will the—"

But at that point Kagura drops the act of a hardened detective and launches herself sideways, diving most of the way over Kyuubei to get to Tae as well, and the explosive noise of her polite congratulations drowns out whatever Gintoki had been trying to say. "Flower girl! Flower girl! I'll frisk all the guests and confiscate their weapons and at the end everyone has to pick a number to see who gets to fight with what, and I'll wear a flower in my hair so they all know I'm the boss, uh-huh, and Shin-chan can videotape it for the internet—"

"Kagura-chan! What the hell do you think a flower girl is?"

"—so you'll have to wear a raincoat, boss lady, to stop the blood getting on your kimono, uh-huh, or Kyuu-chan can carry an umbrella for when it _really_ showers down—"

"Kagura-chan! What the hell do you think a _wedding_ is?"

"Of course you can be a flower girl, Kagura-chan," says Tae, patting the orange head that's nuzzling into her shoulder with the energetic force of a power-drill.

"Is biological warfare permitted, Kagura-chan?" says Kyuubei, contemplating some distant showdown with focused intensity.

"Anything goes," declares Kagura, and yanks both of them into a hug that feels even more like tender, brutal asphyxiation than Kagura's hugs generally tend to.

.-.-.-.

* * *

.-.-.-.

Shinpachi meets them at the yakiniku restaurant, summoned by a text from Kagura direct to his emergency Otsuu-chan's Imperial Guards hotline contact number. " _Emergency_ contact," he scolds her, as they're on their way to a table, "that means emergency, Kagura-chan; for example, if Otsuu-chan releases a single that doesn't seem to be on its way to at least the top ten by the weekend, then we need to organise a mass purchase – or if a romantic scandal breaks, or if paparazzi follow her to the beach and bikini shots appear online—"

"Did _you_ know boss lady's marrying Kyuu-chan?" demands Kagura.

Shinpachi breaks off. He nudges up his glasses and looks between them, and says in some surprise, "Well, of course I did."

The restaurant is far more than twice as loud after their arrival. Meat sizzles; sweetcorn sizzles; the edge of Gintoki's yukata sizzles when Kagura dips it experimentally into the grill, and then Kagura nearly sizzles too when Gintoki notices what she's up to.

Shinpachi sets his chopsticks neatly down and interrupts the yelling. "You know, there could be a job in this, Gin-san. I mean – ane-ue, Kyuubei-san, are you planning to have a party after the wedding?"

"The honeymoon is after the wedding," says Kyuubei, very quickly. "Which is traditionally reserved for the bride and groom. Alone. On their own. In private. Just them, with privacy."

Tae reaches across the table and gives Shinpachi's hand a sympathetic pat. "What Kyuu-chan's saying, Shin-chan, is I'm afraid you're not invited."

"I'm not – _ane-ue_! I know that! I'm not trying to invite myself on your honeymoon!"

Kagura plucks the longest strip of beef from the grill. "Disgusting, Shin-chan."

"You need to sort yourself out before the big day, Patsuan; a sister problem is bad enough at any stage of life, but when your sister is a married woman—"

" _Gin-san_! Ane-ue, I don't have a sister problem! _They're_ the ones with the sister problem, they've got a problem with _my_ sister, they're the ones who—"

"What were you saying about a job?" remarks Gintoki.

"Ah – ah, yes," says Shinpachi, collecting himself together with a heroic effort of will. He nudges up his glasses and folds his hands on the table before him, assuming his most business-like tone. "Well, if there's a party, then someone has to organise it. And to cater it, and see it all goes smoothly, and clear up after it – and if ane-ue and Kyuubei-san are looking for someone to sort that out, and if we're looking for work – which we are, because we always are – but _especially_ because we're down to our last roll of toilet paper, and last time we ran out of toilet paper you both started using bedsheets from the clean laundry I'd only _just_ washed and put away, which was—"

"— _very_ warm," announces Kagura, "my butt liked it, and it made my farts smell like fabric softener all day. We should give up on toilet paper and just do that always, Gin-chan."

"What I _mean_ ," says Shinpachi, very loudly, "is that ane-ue and Kyuubei-san need a party organised, and maybe the Yorozuya could take that job. Right, Gin-san?"

"But Patsuan is far too slow with the laundry to keep up with our rate of output," Gintoki says heatedly, "we'd have to ration out our dumps beforehand, since we don't have enough bedlinen to go around. It's a pity, Kagura-chan," he says, and sighs as though the responsibility he bears is so burdensome it exhausts him just to think of it, "but for day to day it's just not practical."

" _Gin-san_!"

"Aa, you're right, Gin-chan. We'll have to save it for special occasions, uh-huh, like the weekend, and some weekdays, and whenever else we feel like it."

"Kagura-chan! Are you even listening to me? Is _anyone_ listening? Am I still here?"

"Ah? What is it, Patsuan? You know, 'tomato' isn't a healthy colour for any young boy to be, and you don't even have the excuse of fashion; it's much more stylish to focus on neutral shades this season. Take a deep breath and lose the tomato, that's what I'd recommend."

"I heard if you eat just one carrot it turns your entire body orange forever, Gin-chan. You don't think Pachi's been eating his vegetables, do you?"

"Absolutely not, Kagura-chan – I know Shinpachi-kun would never betray me like that. I raised him right, just like I raised you right, and if there's one message I've always worked my hardest to pass on to the next generation, it's to stay away from eating filth that grows in dirt and animal crap."

"How is – _Gin-san_! How is eating vegetables a betrayal? I eat vegetables every day! Even _you_ eat—"

"Tae-chan," says Kyuubei, very softly.

"I know, Kyuu-chan," says Tae – though with her hand pressed to her mouth, struggling to hold down her rising, helpless laughter, it doesn't come out so much soft as it comes out muffled. Kyuubei's smiling down at the table with a look Tae doesn't even need to see to know it's there; she can feel it, a beacon of the same perfect contentment as her own.

.-.-.-.

* * *

.-.-.-.

[ **A.N.** : This fic was destined to happen from the moment I thought 'rewatching the Yagyuu arc would probably be a bad idea', then went ahead and did it anyway, and left myself a) permanently emotionally compromised, b) unable to think about anything except a happily and mutually requited reprise... so _inevitably_ I wrote it. Chapter two (of three) should be up very soon, and any comments would be appreciated!]


	2. Chapter 2

.-.-.-.

* * *

Kondou finds out in the usual way, and Tae finds Kondou out in the usual way too: very rarely does the Shimura refrigerator emit the sound of hysterical sobbing of its own accord. The tip of Kyuubei's sword winkles him out of his hiding place between the fridge and the wall; the flat blade of Kyuubei's sword coaxes him at speed through the hall into the main room; the hard wooden toe of Tae's sandal evicts him from the premises at such great speed that the air shrieks as his body soars through it, and she slides the doors closed again before the distant thud of Kondou colliding with his fate has yet boomed out.

"You know, I really _did_ think we'd gorilla-proofed the kitchen," Tae says reflectively.

"I'm sure of it, Tae-chan," says Kyuubei, equally reflective, and heads off to investigate.

The investigation concludes a few minutes later. Kyuubei returns carrying a mop and bucket full of bloody water and bloodied caltrops, a range of steel-jawed traps bitten down hard on scraps of Shinsengumi blue, and a large sheet of extra-strength flypaper coated in the coarse and plentiful fur of a stray specimen _gorilla gorilla gorilla_.

"We did, Tae-chan," says Kyuubei.

"Burn it, Kyuu-chan," says Tae.

.-.-.-.

* * *

.-.-.-.

"Oi, oi... Otae-san? How convenient to see you here." The voice is as lifeless as week-old roadkill. One of Kondou's apes-in-training rises up from behind the display of fresh tomatoes. "Aa, and Kyuubei-kun as well? What a lucky, lucky boy I am..."

"Okita-san," says Tae, and dips her head politely. "I didn't know the Shinsengumi had you on kitchen duty. Have they finally decided it's safer if you're kept off the streets?"

"Nothing of the sort, Otae-san. I'm doing Hijikata-san's groceries for him." Okita hefts his basket. A few putrid gourds roll listlessly from one side to the other, squelching as they go; flies buzz around the remains of what could be grapes, or what could be a loose clutch of human eyeballs after a few days spent soaking in marsh water. "A special treat," says Okita, and looks thoughtfully up towards the canopy. "Maa, since you're here... Can you guess who spent all of yesterday crying and wailing in the shower and bawling along to an album of the decade's greatest break-up songs?"

Tae presses her hand to her mouth in thought. "Do you know, I really can't imagine who that might have been. Can you, Kyuu-chan?"

"If it wasn't you then I don't care, Tae-chan."

"Ah, Kyuu-chan..."

"You're right, Tae-chan. I spoke without thinking, and I apologise." Kyuubei straightens from an investigation of the tomato crates, and gravely amends: "If it wasn't Tae-chan, Shinpachi-kun, or Kagura-chan, then I don't care."

Okita drops a fresh lettuce on the ground and begins rolling it thoroughly beneath the sole of his boot, his flat stare unblinking. "Are you sure about this, Otae-san? It's not so much that I have a problem with Kondou-san coming in second place—"

"Oh, he was never even registered for the race, Okita-san."

"—but I happen to remember the last time this happened. And if you get hurt again, then Kondou-san gets hurt again. And if Kondou-san gets hurt," says Okita, flipping the lettuce up neatly with the toe of his boot and catching it in his basket, "then a _lot_ of people get hurt. I'd offer you statistics, but generally it depends on what percentage of the local population is fast enough to outrun a bazooka."

Confidentially: "I am, Tae-chan."

"Kyuu-chan! Really?"

Kyuubei nods in solemn confirmation. "But not a laser cannon."

Tae considers this. "What about a surface-to-air missile?"

"Ah... I've never tried, Tae-chan. I'm sorry."

"You have nothing to be sorry about, Kyuu-chan," Tae says firmly. Her gaze moves from Kyuubei to Okita, and that firmness turns to steel. "You know, Okita-san, most people have offered us something in the way of congratulations."

"Aa? Well, I prefer to give more creative gifts. They're more memorable, in the long run." His hand has been meandering in the direction of his sword, and now it settles: curled around the hilt, unmoving, as though it's a resting site as innocent and meaningless as the settling ground of snow.

Even for Tae, it's difficult sometimes to judge the precise quality of Kyuubei's seriousness. The choice between a yellow or blue balloon at the fairground is made with the same gravity as the choice between defying or obeying the whims of the Yagyuu. To the untrained eye, the difference can be imperceptible – but there's no eye more trained than Tae's, and it's unmistakeable: Okita's hand on his sword has triggered Kyuubei's attention to lock down the way a carelessly placed foot triggers a bear-trap to lock down.

"Kyuubei-kun – we didn't hesitate before, and we won't hesitate again. If you do anything that hurts Kondou-san..." His voice is as bland as ever. His grip tightens just as blandly – only the slightest chink of silver shows above the sheath – but at the first sight of steel Kyuubei reacts with sudden, deadly ferocity and no hesitation.

Okita's basket hits the floor and spills its contents out. Tae cries out and stumbles backwards, into a display of satsuma crates; steel clashes against steel, and shrieks ring out inside the shop. One shriek kickstarts another: in an instant the panic's spreading, from beneath the grocer's canopy to the canopies all along the street, from beneath the canopies to the busy Kabukichou street outside—

" _Kyuu-chan_ —!"

"This is the Shinsengumi! Weapons down!" bellows the Vice Commander, skidding in beneath the grocer's canopy. "Sword ownership is forbidden under – _Sougo_!" In half a second flat, Hijikata switches gear from briskly professional to apoplectically irate. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

Okita shifts his stance. A putrid sweet potato explodes beneath the heel of his boot. "Just a little bit of routine intimidation and extortion gone awry, Hijikata-san. Nothing to worry about, except for how securely your neck seems attached to your torso; do you think you could take a step closer?"

"Routine intimi— _Sougo_! Drawing your sword on—" but then Hijikata seems to notice, for the first time, just who it is that Okita's drawn his sword on. The fury cools from his expression, and a look of hunted awkwardness replaces it. "Ah – Otae-san, Kyuubei-san. We, ah – heard the news. About – I mean," he says, and ferociously clears his throat. "Congratulations from the Shinsengumi, both of you."

Tae accepts this graciously. "You're very kind, Hijikata-san. Do you think you could get your rabid dog back into its muzzle, and onto its leash, and inside its cage? He won't let well enough alone; he's been frothing since we got here, and now he keeps trying to hump Kyuu-chan's shin, and no bride-to-be should have to witness her groom-to-be subjected to such undignified behaviour."

"For samurai, the clash of swords speaks more clearly than words," explains Okita, "so for Kyuubei-kun and me, this is merely the easiest way to discuss the weather." He adjusts his grip. The steel of his sword sings against Kyuubei's with the movement, a smooth and terrible noise. "Unseasonably warm, Hijikata-san, don't you think?"

Kyuubei's focus still hasn't shifted from Okita, intense as though he's the only person there. "That's not true."

"Of course it's not true," says Hijikata. "Sougo, you're a fool if you think I don't know exactly what this is about. And do you think Kondou-san would thank you for it? You think he's _going_ to thank you for it, when the report comes in you've been fighting in the streets? – when he hears who you've been fighting in the streets?"

Okita's flat stare moves across to Tae and stays there, unreadable.

Hijikata shoves his crumpled cigarette packet back inside a pocket, and strikes a light. "Just put your goddamn sword away."

"Ah, Hijikata-san..." Okita lets out a heavy, tragic sigh; but at last he lets his sword fall, and steps away to return it to its sheath. "Always so quick to tell tales, aren't you? You must have been the least popular boy in the playground. Let me finish my shopping, at least; I only need to pay, and tonight I'll cook you the candlelit dinner of your dreams."

"I've never once dreamed of a candlelit dinner with you," says Hijikata. His gaze skitters aside like he doesn't quite want it to, but it reaches Tae anyway – already back at Kyuubei's side, since the moment that both swords fell. "You're, ah – everything all right, Otae-san?"

"I'm sure it will be once you've left," says Tae politely.

"Got it," says Hijikata, and takes a tremendous drag of smoke. "Sougo, get a move on."

Okita scoops his groceries back into their basket. Then he scrapes the sole of his boot against a nearby crate, leaving a mushy vegetable residue behind, and carefully scrapes that into the basket too. He straightens up. "Ready, Hijikata-san. Let's go and pay – your treat."

Hijikata takes one look in the basket and kicks it to the floor. "Go to hell," he says, and seizes an iron grip on Okita's collar before marching him back out into the sunshine.

"I only—" begins Kyuubei, the moment they're alone again, and at the same time Tae begins, "Kyuu-chan—"

Both of them stop. Both of them attempt to start again: "I only wanted to—" and "Kyuu-chan, that was—"

"Will you get _out of my shop_!" howls the grocer.

They get out of his shop. "That was very brave," says Tae, scouting keenly for any supermarket that'll know how to appreciate her custom, "and very silly, Kyuu-chan; you know I could punch that sadist's puny balls right up into his skull if he tried anything, and you shouldn't waste your time with opponents who aren't worth it."

"Defending you is always worth it, Tae-chan."

"But you see, he's like a gnat to me, Kyuu-chan."

"I would defend you from a gnat, Tae-chan."

"Kyuu-chan..."

"If I saw a gnat dare to approach you, I'd cut it in half before it could even think about sucking your blood, Tae-chan. I've sliced the stingers off dozens of wasps just because they looked at you."

For a moment the great swell of Tae's emotion rises up far enough that her words fail her. She can't do anything about it, of course: anything beyond hand-holding is absolutely inappropriate for a public venue, and she has a spotlessly modest reputation to uphold – but she presses her hand against her chest as though she could reach right in and force her heart to press pause on its soaring, wonderful song. "I love you very much, Kyuu-chan," she says fiercely, "and I completely understand. I'd kill far more than a wasp to keep you safe. I'd kill a bear. Two bears. _Three_ bears—"

"I'd fight a dragon for you, Tae-chan, if I had to – if we ever found one and accidentally made it angry—"

" _Twenty_ bears, all at once—"

"Or a crocodile, or a dragon with a history of crocodiles somewhere in its ancestry—"

"Twenty bears all at once and some of them with combat training, and others with – do you think dragons _can_ have crocodile in their ancestry, Kyuu-chan?" asks Tae, intrigued.

"I couldn't say, Tae-chan," says Kyuubei gravely. "But if it's for you, it's a risk I'm willing to take."

.-.-.-.

* * *

.-.-.-.

"Marriage," says Hasegawa, "is a wonderful thing."

A contemplative silence falls. He braces his elbows on his knees and leans forward, staring intensely at the ground between his feet. The park smells of blossom and Hasegawa smells of dirt.

"A wonderful thing," he resumes at last. "It's the _most_ wonderful thing. Marriage is love, and love is everything, and when you have love it doesn't matter _what_ else you have – if you have a home, or clothes, or food, or dignity... Marriage is the, the – it's the beginning and the end, Otae-san! Marry the person you love and _never let them go_ , never let anything between you; you have to _fight_ for that marriage, fight for your love – defend it tooth and claw, for you'll never regret anything as much as, as, as – as _losing_ it," his voice rising up in a broken wail, "it'll be the single greatest mistake of your whole wretched life if you lose it, you need to be prepared to do whatever it takes, _whatever_ it takes, no matter how shameful, how humiliating, how beneath you it may seem—"

"I see," says Tae politely. "Excuse me, old man, if you wouldn't mind—"

"It means so _much_ to me!" he bursts out. He shoves up his sunglasses, eyes screwed shut and tears flooding down, and scrubs a filthy sleeve across his eyes. "Gin-san told me about your news, Otae-san, and it means so, so much to me – that you'd ask my advice, _my_ advice, old Hasegawa, just a homeless old loser – it's been so long since I was respected, but if there's anything I know, it's love – _oh_ , it's love! Love, love – it means more to me than you can know that you'd seek my advice, more than you'd ever dream, Otae-san—"

"Could you move your cardboard box, please, old man? You're in the way of the dustbin," says Tae.

"You... know who I am, don't you?" His sunglasses fall back into place. He stares up at her in dismay. "Otae-san? You _do_ know who I am, don't you?"

"Of course," says Tae, "you're a wretched old man in the way of the dustbin, and if you don't move over I'm going to put this dirty tissue in your cardboard box instead."

Hasegawa's head falls forward, heavy with the weight of shame. "I... actually," he says, nearly too brokenly low to hear, "actually, Otae-san, I could... use that tissue. If you happen to have it spare. It's been a long time since I took a comfortable dump."

"You're disgusting," Tae says pleasantly, and tosses the used tissue in Hasegawa's general direction – not too near, for fear of contamination. "Never speak my name again. I don't want it in your unhygienic mouth."

"Tae-chan?" calls Kyuubei, over near the entrance to the children's playground. "Seita-kun would like an ice cream – do you think it's appropriate?"

"On my way, Kyuu-chan!" Tae calls back, and forgets about the whole encounter as soon as she turns merrily away.

.-.-.-.

* * *

.-.-.-.

A visitor rings at the gate the next morning, early enough that the sky is still a barren grey washed in pink. Kyuubei is out on family business, leading dawn training at the Yagyuu dojo, and Shinpachi has already left for his day with the Yorozuya; Tae is alone, and she goes to the gate.

Kondou's there. His uniform is immaculately pressed; his buttons sparkle in the meagre light. Even his hair seems to have reached a majority decision regarding the direction it wishes to sprout in. In his arms, he's cradling an exuberance of vibrant foliage as though it's his huge and bushy firstborn child.

Tae gets several steps down the garden path and turns immediately back the way she came. "How strange," she remarks aloud, "I could have sworn I heard someone at the gate."

"Otae-san!"

"How _very_ strange," Tae further remarks, "I could have sworn I heard my name. A trick of the wind, I suppose."

" _Otae-san_! You don't have to let me in, just let me say what I need to say – I'll say it from the other side of the gate, if you like, as far away as you want me, or the very bottom of the garden—"

"I'd prefer the other side of the city," says Tae, "or the very bottom of the sea; but the gate will do." She comes back. Her sandals clicking on the path are nearly the only sound in this still morning, but Kondou's breathing gets heavier with nerves the nearer she gets. "What do you want, ape? Do you know your men have been causing trouble for Kyuu-chan and me?"

"They won't be doing it again," says Kondou. "I'm sorry, Otae-san; they get heated when it comes to protecting what they care about, and they care about me, and I care about _you_ , so—"

"Kondou-san," says Tae, and gives him a very small and very sweet smile that conveys her intentions for him better than repeatedly stamping on any disembowelled voodoo doll labelled with his name ever could.

"No, no no no! Not like that! Well – yes, like that – but not _only_ like that." He straightens to attention, chest out, girding himself for something that has a deep brick-red creeping all the way up from the collar of his uniform. "I want you to be happy, Otae-san. And I'll always respect your choices, so long as they make you happy; so there's only one thing I want to ask you, and it's—"

Tae cuts him off, not unkindly. "Kyuu-chan makes me very happy, Kondou-san."

The cellophane wrapping of his bouquet crinkles. He's fidgeting his fingers, but remaining otherwise perfectly composed, and Tae chooses not to notice the fidgeting at all. "Then that's enough for me, Otae-san. I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I got in the way of your happiness. And if I interfered with the process of love unfurling its sweet blossoms in your heart, I wouldn't _want_ to live with myself."

"Speaking of getting in the way of my love, Kondou-san, there's something else that would make me very happy. But – oh," says Tae, pressing her fist against her mouth, her gaze cast humbly downwards, "I couldn't ask for it, Kondou-san, I couldn't possibly. It's too much. Please forget I said anything."

"Anything you want, Otae-san!" Kondou seizes a bar of the gate between them so urgently that it clatters it on its hinges. "Just say the word! Whatever it is, you'll have it, if it's humanly possible – and if it's not then I'll find Amanto to hire for the job instead, so either way you'll have it. _Anything_ , Otae-san."

Tae's humbly downcast gaze grows more humble still. "I'd like you to stay the hell out of my house, you pathetic stalker," she says politely.

A look of wretched loss crosses Kondou's face.

"Apart from the fact it's vile and disturbing, I'm a woman engaged to be wed now; and what kind of stain do you suppose it would bring upon my honour if anyone were to notice an unidentified male primate creeping around my home in the middle of the night? And spare a thought for Kyuu-chan, too – what kind of samurai would take such behaviour towards their bride-to-be lightly? If you break in and Kyuu-chan draws a blade in defence of my honour, your death will be no one's fault but your own."

The bouquet's wrapper crinkles again; but Kondou sets his shoulders, and draws in a great, steadying breath. "You have my word, Otae-san. Consider it my engagement gift to the two of you."

"Absolutely not," says Tae.

"Absolutely not," Kondou agrees at once, smooth as though he had never suggested otherwise. "These are for you too, by the way – you and Kyuubei-kun." He holds the flowers out towards the gate between them, overspills of waxy green leaves and brassy orange trumpets and frilled, sunshine-yellow petals. "Ah – is Kyuubei-kun here...?"

"Almost," says Tae, and unlocks the gate. A slight figure in a white coat is making brisk work of the distance to the Shimura household, ponytail swinging back and forth with sleek regularity. "Kyuu-chan!"

The figure starts making even brisker work of the distance remaining.

Tae accepts the flowers from Kondou, settling them carefully in the crook of one arm so their powdery yellow stamens pose no risk to her immaculate kimono. "Nothing to worry about, Kyuu-chan," she says serenely, and Kyuubei's hand falls away from its mistrustful, preparatory place on the hilt of that whet-sharp Yagyuu sword.

"I only came to give Otae-san my blessings," says Kondou. "Ah – and you, Kyuubei-kun. Take care of her."

Kyuubei looks at him intently for a moment. "You owe Tae-chan new mousetraps. You left your flesh and blood in hers."

"I'll buy some today," Kondou promises. "I'll buy a whole bag of them. I'll buy two bags of them. Do you think I could speak to you alone for a minute, Kyuubei-kun?"

Kyuubei looks for Tae's reaction the same time Tae looks for Kyuubei's.

"I'll start finding vases for these," says Tae, after a moment, hefting the colossal bouquet higher in her arm. "I'll see you inside, Kyuu-chan. Kondou-san, if I see you inside I'll castrate you. But – thank you," she says, and offers him another smile: one that's less dangerously sweet, and more honestly felt, and one that suggests warmth more than it suggests imminent extraction of all of Kondou's toenails. "Thank you for everything, Kondou-san. I appreciate how kind you've always been."

To his credit, Kondou manages to suppress blurting out whatever his first urge is. With a manful struggle, he remains silent; solemnly he bows his head to her, and turns away to speak to Kyuubei.

Tae goes inside. One vase of flowers finds a home in the main room, and another finds a home in Shinpachi's bedroom, and another finds a home on the dojo's front veranda, and she's stripping away the smaller leaves from a fourth batch when a bellow of terrible anguish rises up from outside.

The sound cuts off abruptly. Tae finishes tidying the stems and moves the discarded leaves neatly aside, and listens out for Kyuubei's quiet footsteps. "How did it go, Kyuu-chan?"

"I'm not sure, Tae-chan. He's not moving anymore. He said sorry for the swordfight, and the stalking, and he wished me his congratulations, and then he tried to shake my hand. That's why I threw him into the wall. That's why he's not moving."

"Not a problem, Kyuu-chan. You have to remember, the lower evolutionary orders have much thicker skulls than we humans do – I'm sure Kondou-san will be fine." Now short of vases, Tae crams the flowers into a water jug and presents it to Kyuubei.

"Ah... for me?"

"For anyone we can get to take them off our hands, really. They're hideous, aren't they?"

"Extremely, Tae-chan."

"But it was very kind of him." Tae sets the jug back down, and pushes it to the back of the table. She considers it. "It's not _too_ obtrusive there, is it? And they'll die before long, anyway; we may as well keep them on display and look after them until then."

"Like pampering a human sacrifice in the weeks before the ceremony, Tae-chan?"

"The perfect comparison, Kyuu-chan."

Flushing pink with satisfaction, Kyuubei joins her at the table. The pile of flowers still to be organised is a green and sprawling mess, loose petals and loose leaves and ferny curls adrift all across the tabletop; Tae starts selecting candidates for the fifth vase, and Kyuubei starts meticulously rearranging a selection of loose flowers into the characters of Tae's name, and beyond the garden walls the city wakes all the way up and rumbles into noisy, smelly, exuberant life.

.-.-.-.

* * *

.-.-.-.

In the very early hours, the sky above Kabukichou's neon glow still has the traces of stars shining out amidst the traces of blinking satellites and rocketship contrails. An hour ago, the street would have been bustling with the drunk and the drunker, but it's quieted by now; and when someone calls Tae's name, there's no mistaking it.

She's on her way home from Snack Smile. She stops. She balls her fists in preparation to meet her unseen companion, and looks narrowly around.

"Just me, Otae-san." A door slides open: the back entrance to the snack bar. A crack of yellow light shines out, obstructed by the shape of Otose in the doorway. "You'll stop for a drink, won't you? On the house," she adds, and pushes the door wider, and smoke of dubious origin curls out behind her.

Tae has rarely seen the snack bar so deserted. Tama's there, dutifully sponging up some unidentifiable spilled liquid from a booth seat; and Catherine's on her way out as Tae comes in, though she sticks around for long enough to inform her, loftily, that: "I've turned down suitors on five different planets in my time, and one of those was in a whole separate galaxy, so don't go thinking _you're_ anything special, little miss Kabukichou Princess."

"That's little miss Kabukichou Queen to you, Catherine-san," Tae corrects graciously, and takes a seat at the bar.

Tama keeps diligently cleaning, sweeping up glass and mopping down tabletops and fluffing the pillows of the booth seats, shining the brass legs of the bar stools, tipping the leftover kaki-pi back into a large pot to be reused the next night. Otose's not one much for talking, and Tae's not one much for exchanging information of any sort with other district kingpins without extremely good cause, and they sip their drinks together in near silence, surrounded by the warm, boozy smog of the bar after closing-time.

Eventually, Otose sets down her cup. "You two planning to have it catered?" she asks, as she lights another cigarette.

"Gin-san volunteered for the job. Or rather, Shin-chan volunteered Gin-san for the job; so if he tells you he can't afford the rent that month, he's lying, and if you shake him violently enough, the money should jangle out anyway."

Otose nods, as though this settles something. "I'll provide the rice."

Tae moves her feet aside to allow Tama's vacuum cleaner access. "The rice, Otose-san?"

"You're inviting that noisy brat upstairs, aren't you?" Otose jerks her thumb upwards, towards the airing cupboard in which Kagura is currently, presumably, sleeping. "So I'll provide the rice. Save you a fortune in catering bills."

"That's very kind of you," says Tae, only a little muffled by the way she's delicately shielding her mouth and nose against Otose's cloud of acrid smoke.

"Don't mention it," says Otose. She leans over the bar and drops her empty cup into a sink on the other side. "Really, don't mention it. She'd eat this place's monthly income in rice with every meal, if she could; it's a gift I can't afford to give. And here I am, giving it anyway."

Tae bows her head in polite acknowledgement. Otose taps ash into the sink as well, content to say nothing; and the quiet returns for a little while, until at last Tae takes a sip and finds she has nothing left to sip. "Thank you for your hospitality, Otose-san," she says, and gets to her feet. "I should be leaving now, though."

"Of course, of course." Otose's gaze is idly watchful, her chin in her hand. She exhales smoke, and says, "I suppose you'll have people at home wondering what's keeping you, won't you? Best not keep them up, Otae-san. Sleep well tonight."

A peaceful warmth that's not wholly from the sake burns its way through Tae as she makes her way back home. Otose is correct on all counts: Shinpachi and Kyuubei are awake when she arrives – but barely – dozing off together on the sofa to a soporific Amanto-made documentary on transgalactic corporate fraud; and both of them are revived and relieved just by the sight of her; and she sleeps very well that night indeed.

.-.-.-.

* * *

.-.-.-.

Two days in a row, Tae packs a picnic lunch and Kyuubei packs a picnic blanket, and they set out for the city cemetery. It's not warm on either day, but the sun stays bright and Tae packs their glowing, pulsing black lunch up well enough that it keeps a little of its heat, and they keep close enough they share each other's warmth. At the grave of Kyuubei's mother, they leave behind white and yellow daffodils and a plate of glowing, pulsing black mochi; the next afternoon, at the grave of Tae's father, they leave behind a cheerfully bright selection of tulips and a plate of glowing, pulsing black tamagoyaki.

"And so long as neither of us is struck by lightning in the next week or so," says Tae, as she slices open an incinerated grapefruit to leave as well, "then I think we should take it as their blessing, Kyuu-chan."

Kyuubei's peering up at the vast blue sky, head tipped back and eye shaded. "All clear so far, Tae-chan."

"Keep me updated, Kyuu-chan," says Tae. She takes the empty picnic basket in one hand and holds the other out for Kyuubei: who takes it, and the next week passes free of lightning strikes except for a single freak accident that affects no one in Edo but for Sacchan's skulking ninja sidekick, who makes a brief appearance on the evening news clutching his scorched and pixelated buttocks while shrieking in agony, and who hardly counts at all.

.-.-.-.

* * *

.-.-.-.

[ **A.N.** : Thank you for reading! The last chapter should be up before too long, and in the meantime, any comments would be appreciated.]


	3. Chapter 3

.-.-.-.

* * *

"You really think anyone's going to accept that? Marriage between a human and gorilla is illegal, you degenerate pervert; let poor Kyuubei-san alone and find a spouse of your own _species_ , at least—"

Tae punches her straight off the bridge. The wooden guard rails splinter like tinder, and a tremendous detonation of river water curtails Sacchan's shriek. "Who's calling who a degenerate pervert, Sarutobi-san?" Tae calls politely down after her.

"I'm happy for you both," says Tsukuyo, and exhales a decisive cloud of smoke. "Real happy for you. I never known anyone get married before, but Hinowa gets proposed to so many times a night I know it's gotta be something special."

"It's the only thing I've ever wanted," Kyuubei says gravely, then just as gravely amends: "One of only two things I've ever wanted. I also want a little monkey hat for Jugem Jugem to wear on winter days."

"I'll knit one for him, Kyuu-chan," says Tae.

Kyuubei's head whips around so ferociously fast that Tsukuyo's pipe smoke is sliced in half by the arc of a ponytail. "Do you mean it, Tae-chan?"

"Of course, Kyuu-chan. We can even take him to the fabric shop and let him choose the colours, if you think he'd like that."

Kyuubei nods fervently. "And... maybe little gloves?"

"Absolutely, Kyuu-chan."

"I love you, Tae-chan," says Kyuubei, really quite intensely.

" _Technically_ ," begins Sacchan, heaving herself up over the river wall and climbing, sodden, to her feet, "this should entirely remove you from the competition for Gin-san's heart and soul and loins, not that you've ever posed any competition anyway, but I'm not yet willing to rule out the possibility that this could all be a ploy to provoke Gin-san's jealousy and thus his lust – and so from the goodness of my heart I just want to inform you that I once got myself a digital girlfriend and redesigned her as a man, which is essentially the same as your situation, and although Gin-san was obviously _devastatingly_ jealous and aroused and close to climax, I still got nothing for it, in the end, except a range of dick pics, and I can get those anytime that Gin-san falls asleep so that was nothing special, apart from the way in which Gin-san's dick pics are _always_ special—"

River water explodes up with such force that it showers the riverbank like sewer-reeking summer rain. "Sorry about that," says Tsukuyo, wiping her hand off on her kimono.

Tae waves the apology graciously away. "Not at all, Tsukuyo-san; you're very kind to help us out. Really, if you ever tire of selling your body to oversexed salarymen, I'm sure you could make an excellent living in pest control."

Tsukuyo considers this as they cross the street to the tea shop. "That's the rudest compliment I ever got," she says at last, sounding vaguely bewildered.

The sun umbrellas are open above the tea shop's outdoor tables, shielding them from the bright spring sunshine. Across the street the river glitters with peaceful tranquillity, for all the world as though it's not composed of fifty percent mud, thirty percent the urine of late-night Kabukichou revellers, fifteen percent the vomit of late-night Kabukichou revellers, and five percent the floating, drifting, snoring bodies of late-night Kabukichou revellers.

"We're counting on you to come to the wedding, you know. And there's a favour I'd like to ask – but only if it wouldn't be too much, Tsukuyo-san; I don't want to ask for anything you're—"

"Course not," says Tsukuyo at once, since if any circumstances exist under which Tsukuyo would do anything but immediately agree to a favour, regardless of its content, Tae has – happily and conveniently – yet to find them. "Anything I can do, Tae. What d'you need?"

"I'd like you to deal with my family," says Kyuubei, and then takes a sip of tea and gazes out across the river with an expression as solemn, as contemplative, as though some major philosophical dilemma has just been resolved.

"Ah," says Tsukuyo. "Ah – well," she says again, and sets her cup back down in its place. Her stare shifts warily between the two of them. "I – don't do that kinda thing. Not... on request. I dunno what you heard, but – you wanna talk to Sarutobi about that, maybe. That's, uh. More up her street than mine... Listen, though," she says urgently, dropping her voice and leaning in, "if you're gonna get involved with this stuff, I don't wanna know about it. I don't even let Sarutobi tell me about it. You gotta keep it quiet, you can't _tell_ folk how you're—"

Sacchan drags herself over the edge of the river wall, even more bedraggled than before, and trudges across the street to join their table. "But _if_ it's real," she continues, as though she was never violently interrupted at all, and dodges Tae's merciless sledgehammer punch as she drops herself into the last chair, "then congratulations, I suppose, though personally I still don't see there's anything to be congratulating poor unfortunate Kyuubei-san _on_." She yanks a handful of riverweed from the sodden folds of her scarf and dumps it on the table; and then she tosses back her sopping hair and thoroughly splatters Tsukuyo at her side. "But there's no accounting for taste. Give me the edge of your kimono, Tsukki, I need to dry my glasses. Why didn't anyone get me a drink?"

Tsukuyo offers the edge of her kimono without complaint. "They want you to kill Kyuubei's family," she tells her, in a surreptitious whisper.

Sacchan's polishing slows. She directs a narrow, assessing gaze in a direction that's nowhere near either Tae or Kyuubei, but which nevertheless makes her dramatic intent clear. "Hm," she says, eventually. "Hm, hm, _hmm_. You'd think that would be all the more reason to get me a drink, wouldn't you?"

"Ah, Tsukuyo-san, Sarutobi-san – I think you've misunderstood." Tae wraps her hand in a napkin and delicately moves the wad of riverweed from the centre of the table and into Sacchan's lap instead. "No one's dying, unless the excitement proves too much for their frail old hearts to handle and Kyuu-chan ends up inheriting sooner than expected—"

"—unlikely," puts in Kyuubei, still lost in focused contemplation of the river, "as the Yagyuu are known primarily for their swordsmanship, abbreviated stature, and hardiness in old age—"

"—unlikely," agrees Tae, "as Kyuu-chan says – but you see, Tsukuyo-san, what Kyuu-chan meant is that the Yagyuu clan can be... really a little stuffy, to tell the truth."

"My father won't remove his undergarments even to bathe," says Kyuubei, by way of confirmation.

"Kyuu-chan's side is all samurai and politicians and noblemen, and there's only Shin-chan on my side, and the rest of our guests have largely all been raised in such a way that they know how to behave themselves in polite society – which means it's all up to you, Tsukuyo-san, and that wrong-side-of-the-tracks attitude of yours, to make sure the Yagyuu are properly scandalised." Tae blows steam from her cup, and keeps her gaze modestly lowered. "It wouldn't be a wedding worth mentioning if the guests' antics didn't spark horrified gossip all across the town, after all."

Tsukuyo breathes smoke for a moment, eyes closed in thought. "No," she says at last, "no – I'm pretty sure that other one was still the rudest compliment I ever got. Though that's some close competition, I gotta say."

"I'll help you," Sacchan tells her generously. "You're too naïve and inexperienced, but I know exactly what I'm doing. If it's scandal they want, I can provide it. I can provide it in my sleep. I _do_ provide it in my sleep, though generally within the privacy of my dreams—"

"Ah – well, I _was_ going to ask you, Sarutobi-san; I know your specialties, after all – but you see," says Tae, humbly apologetic, "we don't really want to be providing our guests with buckets to vomit into, and so it seems like an unnecessary risk to even invite you to the ceremony at all."

"Oh? Oh, oh, _oh_? Kyuubei-san!" Sacchan slams a hand on the table, her voice rocketing up into a painful volume. "Kyuubei-san, can you actually see out that eye? Is your love more than fifty percent blind? Is your love so blind you don't actually have any idea what sort of monster you're marrying? Is Otae-san so desperate that she's been taking advantage of the blind all along and we've simply never realised it?"

"Don't mind Sarutobi-san, Kyuu-chan; she's just jealous that she's far blinder than you but no one wants to take advantage of _her_ —"

"Two eyes is _automatically_ less blind than one eye—"

"Two _useless_ eyes is automatically blinder than one _perfect_ eye—"

Two chairs clatter backwards to the ground. Tsukuyo takes her pipe from her mouth and says, unconcerned, "You been up to much lately?"

Kyuubei gives the question the serious consideration it deserves. "We went to the zoo last week. I liked the monkeys best. And the penguins second best. Third best..." A pause, which becomes a lingering pause, which becomes a heavy sigh. "I've been thinking about it all week, Tsukuyo-san. But I can't decide. It's too difficult."

"Don't worry about it," Tsukuyo says gravely. Above, the storm rages on. She picks through her words with care. "Listen, don't feel like you got to tell me nothing you don't wanna tell me – but about what Tae said – about her and this scandal thing..."

She doesn't ask the question, but it's there all the same. "In some ways," says Kyuubei, and trails vaguely off before resuming, determined: "In some ways, it would be helpful if we could have... a distraction. For my family. If there was a scandal more scandalous than me."

Tsukuyo nods. "All right," she says. "Thought so. You don't worry, then – I got it." She wraps her hands around her cup and follows Kyuubei's gaze, out to where the heavy stone bollard at the river's edge is being put to rather more violent use than was probably intended. "You think we oughta do anything about that?" she asks.

"No," says Kyuubei, with quiet and absolute confidence. "Tae-chan's enjoying herself."

"Yeah?" says Tsukuyo doubtfully. Tae has a handful of lilac hair wrapped tightly in her fist. The wildly inefficient headlock she's trapped in only gives her better leverage for yanking on it. Light flashes suddenly, a flurry of dazzling glitter: a burst of kunai, and distantly steel rings from stone, drowned out at once by another mutual explosion of screaming. "Yeah," says Tsukuyo again, all of a sudden as confident as Kyuubei, "I reckon Sarutobi is as well. Listen, you wanna get some lunch? I think we're gonna be here for a while."

.-.-.-.

* * *

.-.-.-.

It's a very rare day that Kyuubei is anything but early to meet Tae, except for those days on which external circumstances interfere and force Kyuubei to be merely exactingly prompt instead. Today, though, the sky is clear of crash-landing rocketships, the weather forecast is clear of asteroid showers, the news is clear of unexpected invasion forces – and yet Tae has been expecting Kyuubei for almost half an hour.

She checks the radio, she checks the television. Still no colossal local calamities, no escaped Amanto zoo creatures, no bizarre airborne contagions, still nothing that might plausibly have dared to interfere with the passage of a reliably punctual and visibly armed young samurai.

The clock ticks over: Kyuubei is exactly half an hour late for lunch.

Tae slips on her sandals, and flexes her fists, and sets off into the streets of Edo.

The mystery of Kyuubei's location is swiftly resolved. The mystery of Kyuubei's delay grows exponentially more mysterious.

Tae bites back the urge to call a greeting, and her hurry slows to a walk. Beyond the hedges around the main square of the park, amidst the cherry trees beyond them, a small crowd has gathered. The small crowd is sitting roughly in a circle, and most of the small crowd are holding tapered candles and wearing masks across the lower portions of their faces; most of them, too, have steel swords hanging unsubtly from the belts of their yukata.

At the centre of the circle are three figures, too far away for Tae to hear whatever conversation they might be engaged in. One figure looks a lot like Katsura Kotarou, if Katsura Kotarou were given to sweeping his silken hair up into a blue hairnet and wearing what appears to be a large plush hotdog costume; one looks a lot like Kyuubei, were Kyuubei given to doing much the same; the last looks so much like Elizabeth that that much, at least, Tae feels sure of: it's certainly Elizabeth.

Tae comes carefully nearer, her sandals hardly crunching on the gravel, and sinks down behind the nearest hedge to listen in.

"—and therefore, once fortified with the power of love, an immense force is transmitted through the ceremonial chanting that gives a thirty-plus stat boost across _all categories_ that settles to fifteen-plus after the honeymoon period, and then to ten-plus when the shine begins to lose its lustre, defined by traditional rules of engagement as _either_ the first time either party expresses frustration with the other party's habit of leaving dirty socks strewn across their bedroom floor, _or_ the first time either party delivers an utterance that begins ' _I can't believe I married the kind of person who—_ ', after which point the stat boost is effectively equivalent to that of an office worker on receiving an end-of-year bonus, and the marriage advantage is lost—"

A sudden pause.

Katsura's voice resumes. "You're quite right, of course, Elizabeth; best to make hay while the sun shines, and so on and so forth. The sooner we get this over with, the sooner the _most_ hotly discussed and eagerly gossiped about dark-haired samurai of respectable upbringing and glossy shampoo and comedically exaggerated seriousness in all of Edo town will once again be _myself_ – Chef's Assistant Katsura! – the humble and unexceptional fast food restaurant employee who has never once featured on a Wanted poster for any reason other than as the star of a recruitment drive: 'Wanted: waiters as punctilious and diligent as this one'. Here, Kyuubei-kun, perform the opening rites; it's the section marked 'Opening Rites' on the order of service Elizabeth gave you. You'll need this trumpet, here – that's for the fanfare; and don't forget to blink _exactly_ twelve times during the recitation of vows, it's a key part of the Renho tribe's belief system—"

Tae closes her eyes. When she reopens them, her memory is blissfully clear of everything she has overheard; and she gets to her feet and returns home without a word.

"Katsura-san wanted me to marry him to Elizabeth-san," explains Kyuubei, short of breath and red of cheek, when at last several hours later the peace of the Shimura household is disrupted by the frantic, high-speed entrance of the second of the two large plush hotdog costumes. "I told him I didn't have the time, Tae-chan – but he said it's been weeks since he led an A-plot, and he wasn't standing for it anymore. He said he was taking matters into his own hands. He said I've been stealing his thunder so he would steal it back from me. He said—"

"Oh, Kyuu-chan," says Tae, in a voice of tragic sympathy, and she rests her palm gently against the plush side of the hotdog bread surrounding Kyuubei's face.

"He said the costume was essential," says Kyuubei, in a voice of equal tragedy. "He said if I didn't agree to wear it and do the wedding then the Jouishishi would storm the Shogun's palace and trigger a story arc so dramatic that we'd be lucky to appear again even before the series ends – you and me, Tae-chan! And I _couldn't_ let that happen," says Kyuubei, suddenly passionate, "I _couldn't_ , Tae-chan – he would have done it, and then we'd both have been on standby, and I want to marry you. I don't want to wait for Joui revolution before I marry you."

"I understand," says Tae. "I understand completely, Kyuu-chan. I would have done exactly the same, and you've nothing to be ashamed of; and now he's in an unlicensed marriage to an Amanto that's most likely a hairy old man in a duck-shaped marquee tent, and that's hardly very Joui of him, is it?"

Kyuubei takes a deep breath, and acquires a look of fresh determination. "Let's forget all about him, Tae-chan. Let's have our lunch. And... let's burn _this_." But the hotdog costume peels open only halfway before the zip gets stuck. Kyuubei yanks at the zip again: it's still sticking. "Tae-chan—"

Obligingly, Tae gives the zip an encouraging little tug. The costume rips in half down the middle. Airy white stuffing explodes into the room like a springtime snowstorm, and Kyuubei kicks away the wreckage and steps free. "Oh, isn't it a mess? Really, if Katsura-san would only pay for proper tailoring, instead of forcing poor Elizabeth-san to stay up all night labouring at the sewing machine... Will you set the table, Kyuu-chan?"

"I'll do anything you want, Tae-chan," says Kyuubei, unexpectedly fervent.

Tae stops in the doorway. "Oh!" she says, without meaning to, and instead of going to the kitchen she turns pink with pleased surprise. "Well – just the lunch table for now, Kyuu-chan. But if there's anything in the world _you_ want, you know—"

"Only you, Tae-chan."

Tae's pink turns pinker. She turns from the doorway, back to Kyuubei, determination and something really quite different rising in her heart. Lunch is already hours late, after all; it can afford to get a little later.

.-.-.-.

* * *

.-.-.-.

There are voices inside the house when Tae steps inside, and her greeting dies as instantly as though she shot it in the head at point blank range. She shuffles off her shoes, and sets down her grocery bags, and she holds her breath and listens, intently: that's Kyuubei, quiet and sombre, and – a male voice, certainly not Shinpachi and certainly not Gintoki, nor Kondou, either—

It's a matter of moments before Tae appears in the doorway of the main room, her footsteps quite noiseless on the floorboards. "Kyuu-chan," she says, solicitous as can be. One hand rests against the frame of the sliding door; the other is at her side, curled around the hilt of a sizeable kitchen knife. "Is everything quite all right here?"

Kyuubei makes a sound of agreement, too focused to reply.

"And Tojo-san," says Tae, still unfailingly solicitous. "Is everything quite all right with you? Are you comfortable? Are you sure you wouldn't rather be somewhere else? Perhaps the heart of a volcano, or the fuel tank of a space shuttle, or strapped to the nose of a red-eye flight to the next galaxy along?"

"Oh, no, thank you, Otae-dono, I'm very well. I'm _very_ well," says Tojo, "I couldn't be better, actually, I'm better than ever, I'm, I'm – ah, _Young Ma-a-aster_ —" and he yanks out a paper tissue, blows his nose wetly into it, and tosses it aside into the colossal heap of balled-up tissues that seems to have accumulated like a snowdrift on the floor beside him. Wretched sobbing overtakes him; he drops his face into his hands and bawls.

At last Kyuubei looks up, still frowning in concentration. "Tojo wanted to talk about wedding fashion, Tae-chan."

Tae drums her fingers thoughtfully along the hilt of the kitchen knife. "Did he now, Kyuu-chan?"

"It's true, Otae-dono," says Tojo, though his voice is so choked and burbling it sounds as though he's speaking from underwater, "I have a special research interest in the subject, you understand; I've been thinking of the future ever since the Young Master was a babe in arms, and I have _years_ of research to—"

"Don't speak to me," says Tae. "Don't speak at all. Keep your disgusting mouth closed and stop expelling bodily fluids in my house. Kyuu-chan," she says, as her sweetness fades into concern, "what's he been saying?"

Kyuubei's frown of concentration deepens. "He likes dresses. I don't like dresses." The pair of them are kneeling either side of the low dinner table, the surface of which is covered with glossy rectangles of – _something_. Tae sinks down at Kyuubei's side, and begins to shuffle through them. "He also thinks you should wear a long blonde wig and borrow his hakama to wear and squint your eyes a lot during the ceremony. He says it's authentic."

"Authentically repulsive," says Tae, whose dinner table appears to have been covered in images cut partially from fashion magazines and primarily from fetish magazines. A lot of black lace is involved, and a lot of elaborate petticoating, and a lot of daring glimpses of pale thigh peeking coyly out between stocking-tops and hemlines. She shuffles them together in one neat pile, then tosses them into the air; the kitchen knife flashes back and forth, and confetti flutters down. "Tojo-san, are you here for any other reason than to sexually harass this innocent young bride's betrothed?"

The snowdrift of tissues at Tojo's side is growing. He tosses back his hair and wails at the ceiling: "I wanted to see the Young Master one last time! I want to always remember the Young Master this way, I want to preserve the Young Master in my memory at exactly this moment, innocent, untouched – I never want us to forget what we shared, Young Master! The laughter, the smiles, the tender glances you would give me as I sipped my strawberry milk each evening, the lingering sense of _something more_ between us—"

But at this point he collapses forward across the table and clutches desperately for Kyuubei's hands; and Kyuubei – who has been listening with unchanging gravity, as solemnly expressionless as ever – reacts in an instant: Tojo soars through the open sliding doors and encounters the garden wall headfirst at top speed. The sound would probably be sickening, if Kyuubei and Tae weren't too far away to hear it. His unconscious body crumples out of sight behind a hedge.

A moment passes in silence. Then, without saying a word, Tae gets to her feet and closes the sliding doors. When she turns back, Kyuubei is silently sweeping away the shredded photographs. The snowdrift of tissues, too, goes into a rubbish bag – handled only with protective rubber gloves – and without discussion, they take the evidence to the outside furnace.

Eventually, watching the jumping flames, Tae remarks, "Do you know, Kyuu-chan, I haven't the slightest idea how any of that mess got there in the first place."

Kyuubei's eye closes in solemn agreement. "It's a mystery, Tae-chan."

"A real mystery, Kyuu-chan. I suppose we'll never know the answer." The furnace belches smoke. Gently, Tae closes its lid. "Well – that's that, then. Let's put away the groceries, shall we?"

.-.-.-.

* * *

.-.-.-.

The ring of the doorbell is followed by a sudden explosion of shattering glass, a shriek of pain followed by a shriek of fury, and then so much shrieking all at once that it's difficult to determine the sentiments behind it.

Tae rings the doorbell again. There's a sound like a gunshot, and a sound like a colossal balloon slowly, squeakily deflating, and Sadaharu starts to howl. The shrieking continues, unchanged.

"Perhaps we should come back later," says Kyuubei.

"But they did tell us eleven o' clock," says Tae, lifting her voice above the chaos as she rings again and again and mercilessly again, "so if they're not ready then it's Gin-san's problem, not ours, and in that case it's far better to take revenge than pity, Kyuu-chan."

"—the drawer! In the _drawer_ , quick, for the love of all that's – ane-ue!" says Shinpachi, sliding the door open just a crack and switching in an instant from authoritative, bellowing ringleader to mild and cheerful little brother. "And Kyuubei-san – how are you both? Have you had a good morning?"

Tae considers. "Have we, Kyuu-chan?"

"I think we have, Tae-chan," says Kyuubei gravely.

"I think we have too," agrees Tae. "We've had a wonderful morning, thank you, Shin-chan. In fact, we—"

"Great," says Shinpachi hurriedly, lifting his voice in an unsuccessful attempt to drown out the protracted groaning sound coming from inside, "great, that's great – but ane-ue, the thing is, I'm afraid we're not quite ready to—"

"We stopped to help an old woman carry her bags onto the bus," continues Tae, breezily unconcerned, "and you'd never believe it, Shin-chan – but in return she gave us free season tickets for the waterpark this summer!"

"And there was an attempt on her life after she boarded the bus," says Kyuubei. "But it wasn't a bus. It was a black market trader's kidnap vehicle in disguise. We had to hitchhike back from an abandoned warehouse after destroying the whole smuggling organisation."

"We left the old woman there, though," says Tae. "It turned out she was a part of the smuggling organisation too, and the whole thing was just some sort of internal coup attempt. But I really don't think anyone had thought it through, Kyuu-chan, had they? They let us join the organisation without any background checks whatsoever, and then they seemed _surprised_ to be destroyed from the inside out... Well, with upper management that incompetent they deserved it, if you ask me."

"But I still have our waterpark tickets," says Kyuubei, and pats the pocket in which they lie. "Can we come in, Shinpachi-kun?"

"Um," says Shinpachi, blinking more than anyone who hasn't been recently stunned should need to, and he nudges up his glasses. Then he attempts to unobtrusively smoothe his hair, which is rumpled in the way hair tends to rumple after someone has spent an hour or so pacing frenziedly back and forth while raking their hands back through it in agitation, probably while yelling. "Um – well," he begins, recovering himself, and looks quickly back across his shoulder into the strangely murky depths of the apartment, "if you wouldn't mind waiting just – just a _minute_ , Kyuubei-san, just for a minute, just while those two sort out a few last—"

Tae wrenches back the door and steps inside. "Gin-san! You promised a progress report, and we're here to collect it!"

The murkiness grows murkier still as she approaches the main room. Inside, hundreds of crumpled balls of paper litter the floor. Impenetrable blueprints on large sheets of paper have been pinned across the walls, covered in complex, haphazard scrawls from Kagura's favoured red felt pen. Blueprints have been pinned up across the windows too, blocking half the light and casting the room into a peculiar midday twilight.

Sprawled against Sadaharu's side in the middle of the room, Kagura takes a lollipop from her mouth and exhales a non-existent cloud of smoke towards the ceiling. "Boss lady, Kyuu-chan. Knew you'd come around sooner or later."

"We told them to come around, Kagura-chan," says Shinpachi, as he follows Kyuubei in. "We told them to come around at eleven o' clock today, so they have. Gin-san, will you—"

"Speaking to an artist in the act of creation is like speaking to a man while he's pissing," says Gintoki, writing furiously at his desk, "in that you interrupt his flow and distract him from the job at hand, and once he knows you're listening it's much too awkward to pick up where he left off. So don't speak, Patsuan. Let my creative genius flow."

"I let _my_ creative genius ferment," announces Kagura, "like a baby, uh-huh, so I have to nourish it like it's a baby, and laze around like it's a baby and take time off work like it's a baby and satisfy all my different sorts of cravings like it's a baby, like for rice and egg-over-rice and rice and sukonbu and rice and rice-over-rice and rice, for example – and then I pop it out. Like it's a baby."

"We're talking about wedding plans, Kagura-chan," says Shinpachi, long-suffering. "What exactly are you popping out? Flower arrangements?"

Kagura adjusts her mirrored sunglasses. Then she reaches up and adjusts Sadaharu's mirrored sunglasses too. "Sometimes my creative genius gets stuck on the way out," she informs Tae, devastatingly world-weary, "and then Gin-chan's got to rub my feet and tell me I'm beautiful till I relax and do the proper heavy breathing. And _then_ I pop it out."

"Is it a cake? A wedding cake? Are you popping out the wedding cake, Kagura-chan?"

"It sounds very hard for you, Kagura-chan," says Tae sympathetically. "Shin-chan can't understand what it's like, of course, not being a woman, so there's no need to listen to all his complaining; it's only you and me, and I understand _completely_."

"Ane-ue! There's nothing _to_ understand, it makes no sense! Lazing around and eating rice is what Kagura-chan does _all the time_ —"

"Excuse me," says Kyuubei, suddenly sharp, inspecting a wall of blueprints, "but... is this a design for a remote-controlled priest, Kagura-chan?"

Kagura stops fermenting her creative genius and detonates with explosive enthusiasm instead. "Hollow all the way through! And the top of his head comes off when you press a button, so you can use him for storage, uh-huh, or in emergencies you can climb inside his body and use him like a mecha. That old man Gengai'd make it if we ask him, I bet. And look here, Kyuu-chan—" as she hurls herself across the couch to land with a sprightly, floorboard-shaking thud at Kyuubei's side, "you know how boring old traditional Earth wedding rings don't _usually_ serve roast pork—"

"I don't know what sort of emergencies could happen at a wedding that would mean you had to climb inside a mecha-priest suit," Shinpachi says to Tae, in a tone so wearily resigned it suggests he's had this argument often enough recently to have thoroughly given up on it.

"Oh, I can think of plenty," says Tae, entirely cheerful and entirely truthful, and picks her way through the mess to join Gintoki at his desk.

He acknowledges her with only a brief, efficient nod. At feverish speed, he's making a list that covers pages upon scribbled pages:

 _—strawberry parfait_

 _chocolate parfait_

 _strawberry and chocolate parfait_

 _vanilla parfait_

 _vanilla and chocolate parfait_

 _strawberry and vanilla parfait_

 _a bowl of toffees_

 _strawberry and chocolate and vanilla parfait_ —

"Working hard, Gin-san?" Tae enquires politely.

"Extremely, Otae-san," says Gintoki, not pausing in his work for even a moment: _plain strawberries, strawberries dipped in sugar, strawberries dipped in chocolate, strawberries made of chocolate that are actually just chocolate—_ "This is what we in the industry call the brainstorming stage, you understand; I'll send this preparatory work to my editor, who's Patsuan, and then I'll incorporate his feedback and revise my work and send it back again, and so on and so forth until we've pared down the catering requirements to a fine-tuned list of perhaps twenty different sorts of parfait, at most, and maybe just fifteen possible milkshake flavours, and potentially as few as five chocolate fountains – though I'm not sure how practical that is, if we assume one of those is mine alone and another is Kagura-chan's alone... Aa, I'll make a note: 'for further discussion with Patsuan'—"

"We've _already_ discussed this," says Shinpachi hotly, "we've been discussing it for days, Gin-san, we've discussed _all_ your ideas, we've discussed how every single one of your ideas is completely—"

With a rumble like a contented furry avalanche, Sadaharu rises to his feet and swallows one of Shinpachi's wildly gesturing arms. " _Hrrf_ ," he suggests, and all of Shinpachi's opinions dissolve into a panicked wail.

— _children's ballpit w/ toffee apples instead of balls, water guns that only shoot chocolate milk (consult Kagura re: details of manufacturing process)_ —

Tae presses her hand across her mouth. When she takes it away again, there's no trace of a smile: her expression is solemnly composed, and she surveys the room with dignity. "Well, what do you think, Kyuu-chan? Do these seem like competent party planners to you?"

Carefully, carefully, Kyuubei sets down an armful of precariously stacked prototype designs that seem to have been crafted mostly from cardboard toilet paper tubes and empty egg-boxes. "I think we're in safe hands, Tae-chan."

"My thoughts exactly, Kyuu-chan," says Tae, sunny as the day outside. "We'll leave you to it, then, Gin-san – everything that needs planning, you're in charge of planning."

"Really?" says Shinpachi in alarm. "I mean – _really_? Are you sure that's a good idea, ane-ue? Because if I was you—" but at that point Sadaharu gulps down his head as well, and the rest of Shinpachi's muffled noises take on a much more panicky tone.

"I'm certain it's a good idea," says Tae firmly. "I mean – _I_ trust Gin-san, and so does Kyuu-chan," which Kyuubei confirms with a single solemn nod, "so really, what else matters? I know Gin-san wouldn't ever let us down."

"The Yorozuya always get the job done," agrees Gintoki, with an uncannily convincing attitude of calm, professional confidence that would be far more impressive if it weren't so likely he'd only learned it by mimicking Ketsuno Ana's evening forecasts. He gets to his feet, offering his hand across the desk. "You've got nothing to worry about, Otae-san; you're hiring the most highly-skilled elite odd-jobs workforce in all of—"

Tae accepts his hand and seals the deal. "Oh, there's no need for all that," she says, sweet as can be. "I trust you completely, Gin-san, and I'm sure you'd never disappoint me. And I know you'd rather commit seppuku than ever cause me to feel even a single moment of anything but happiness."

Gintoki's firm and professional handshake wilts in hers. She lets him go, and he attempts a smile. It's a ghastly smile. "Excuse me. Excuse me? Otae-san, excuse me, but I can't help thinking that that sounded sort of like a threat. Sort of exactly like a threat, Otae-san. Excuse me for thinking it, but _was_ that a threat, Otae-san?"

"Oh, don't be silly," says Tae warmly. "Of course it wasn't a threat, Gin-san."

"If you let Tae-chan down, you won't have the time to choose an honourable death. That's how fast I'll take your head," vows Kyuubei.

" _That_ was a threat," concludes Tae, and tucks her hand through Kyuubei's elbow. "Gin-san, please make sure Shin-chan doesn't suffocate inside your dog, won't you? I'd find it very hard to forgive the man who let my little brother die, and harder still to pay him for his party-planning services afterwards."

"Wait! Boss lady, Kyuu-chan, wait, wait!" Kagura's hurriedly pulling on her slippers, umbrella tucked beneath her arm. "If you're going for ice cream, I'm coming too!"

"Well – we weren't going for ice cream," says Tae, "but we definitely could, couldn't we?"

Kyuubei nods in grave agreement. "The sun's out, Tae-chan. That means ice cream weather."

"Sadaharu! Ice cream! It tastes much better than Pachi's sweaty old armpits!" yells Kagura, and leaps up onto Sadaharu's back as he bounds joyously to his gigantic feet. Shinpachi staggers free, dazed and bedraggled; Kagura grabs him by the collar and yanks him up too. "Two scoops of banana and one scoop of chocolate," she announces, "plus one jumbo egg cracked over the top and a stick of sukonbu jammed in on the side, uh-huh, that's me. The ice cream man calls it the Kagura Special. He says it's the most disgusting thing he's ever seen," she says proudly, and Sadaharu gives a hearty _woof_.

"It _was_ a threat," insists Gintoki passionately, "it was definitely a threat – didn't you hear it, Kagura-chan? Shinpachi, stop dripping dog drool on the floor and agree with me; it _was_ a threat, and this wedding isn't safe at all. Otae-san, Kyuubei-san, please don't take this the wrong way, but your relationship poses a tremendous threat to public health and safety; if I completed a risk assessment in my professional capacity as party planner then my report would be nothing but a huge flashing red light with a siren wailing _danger, danger, danger_ —"

"You don't have to come for ice cream if you don't want, Gin-san," says Tae.

In an instant Gintoki's striding out before them down the hall. "Strawberry," he proclaims, "or possibly chocolate, or possibly both – how many scoops are we talking, exactly? Or should I assume it's all-I-can-eat? Well, I'm a natural optimist, so I'll assume that; and optimists live longer lives, on average, so in a way it's beneficial to my health to anticipate the endless ice cream buffet that certainly lies in my very near future—"

Sadaharu hurtles past him down the hall and Kagura only barely whisks the front door open in time before he bounds through, leaps, and plummets down into the street. Kagura's cry of triumph and Shinpachi's cry of dismay rise up above the general racket of Kabukichou going about its morning business; both get rapidly more distant as the hammering of Sadaharu's paws vanishes into the distance, and Gintoki yells out in betrayal and sprints after them.

Out on the porch, Kyuubei turns to Tae with a look of firm conviction. "We should race them, Tae-chan."

Tae doesn't need to think about it to know it's an excellent idea. The day is so sunny, so warm and so bright, that to do anything with it but spend it haring across town in the springtime sunshine in pursuit of ice cream and the people she loves would be a waste of something wonderful. "On three?" she suggests. "On three. One—"

But on one, Tae bursts forward and races for the stairs. In a swirl of white coat, Kyuubei's already vaulted the railing and launched down into the street. The whirlwind of dust kicked up in Sadaharu's wake is churning far, far ahead of them, and Gintoki's motorbike has rumbled into gear while chasing after it – and the race is on, and together they're off.

.-.-.-.

* * *

.-.-.-.

"Are you nervous, Kyuu-chan?"

Kyuubei rolls over and looks at her, serious in the dark. "About the wedding, Tae-chan?"

"It's silly," says Tae, in a hushed and matter-of-fact whisper that doesn't come out exactly as matter-of-fact as she had hoped. "It's ever so silly of me, of course; I do know I'm being silly... But I think about Shin-chan, and about everyone else – and about all of them thinking about _us_ – and then I think about everything else, and I start to think all sorts of ridiculous things about the future, and about how the future is so _long_... And I think about you – and I just can't help but feel nervous. Isn't that absurd?"

The eyepatch is on the floor beside the pillow; dark hair spills across the place where Kyuubei's eye isn't. The remaining one, though, is huge and grave. "I feel the same, Tae-chan."

"You – do?"

Kyuubei nods.

"But even with," says Tae, "I mean – after you've been so sure, for so long... You've known what you wanted for so many years, Kyuu-chan. You're still nervous?"

"Sometimes I feel nervous even when I don't think about the wedding. Sometimes I feel nervous when I just think about you. Sometimes I'm nervous about wanting something, and then I'm nervous about getting it, and once I have it I'm nervous about having it, as well. So I think that must be normal," says Kyuubei, voice so soft and so serious that if Tae were any more than a breath's distance away it would be hard to hear, "being nervous about it... Because I've never been as nervous about anything in my life as I am about you. And I've never wanted anything in my life as much as I want to be with you."

Even after all this time, asking Kyuubei a direct question still feels a little like opening the window of a boat travelling fast at sea: a sudden burst of honesty as startling and bracing as a blast of sea air. Maybe it always will – Tae can't imagine it's the sort of thing anyone could ever be used to.

"Kyuu-chan—" She presses her hand across her mouth; she takes it away, and manages, "You – oh, Kyuu-chan, you need to warn me if you're going to say something like that!"

Kyuubei goes suddenly still, searching her face worriedly in the dark. "You're not – are you crying, Tae-chan?"

"Definitely not," says Tae, which isn't entirely true: she's rubbing away any threat of tears even as she says it. But her smile is helpless, and ridiculously huge; even if she wanted to, she's sure she couldn't hide it. " _Definitely_ not, Kyuu-chan – but if I was, hypothetically speaking, then it would only be because I'm happy. Because I'm very happy. Because I'm—" But everything Tae could say seems awfully inadequate compared to everything she feels. Beneath the covers she finds Kyuubei's hands, then waist, then mouth, and gives her promise another way: there's no way she could be happier.

Outside in the quiet night there's a bird insistently whooping; the distant, endless traffic rumbles on by. It's not warm enough yet to sleep with a veranda door cracked open, but the days are stretching longer and brighter as summer rolls in, and it won't be long at all before the heatwave hits. Autumn colours after that, and then the winter chill, and then another spring – and then, waiting for the two of them in that next year's spring, almost an entire year away but as huge and bright in Tae's thoughts as though it may as well be tomorrow—

"You'd think the second time round would be a walk in the park, wouldn't you?" says Tae. The small warm foot conducting an absent-minded exploration of her shin ceases its exploration. Kyuubei looks up at her, sleepily attentive. "We've had far more experience of marrying each other than anyone usually gets, after all. Shouldn't we be experts at this by now, Kyuu-chan?"

"I'm not sure anyone's an expert at being in love, Tae-chan."

"Then we'll just have to be the first," says Tae. Her voice is a determined whisper; her smile is back, and blooming again. "Don't forget, Kyuu-chan, practice makes perfect."

"I can't argue with that, Tae-chan," says Kyuubei gravely, but Tae's not the only one smiling.

"And haven't we got plenty of time to practise, Kyuu-chan?"

"We've got all the time in the world, Tae-chan."

It's true, of course – but for a moment, Kyuubei's very solemn play-acting stops Tae in the tracks of her own silliness. "All the time in the world," she says thoughtfully, as all of a sudden it occurs to her just _how_ true it is: so little of their lives behind them, and so much of their lives before them, and two lifetimes to develop expert-level competence in all the finer details of what _being in love_ entails.

Practice makes perfect; and maybe sometimes the practice is perfect too.

"All the time in the world," says Tae again, and: " _Good_ ," she says, with feeling.

.-.-.-.

* * *

.-.-.-.

[ **A.N.** : I've had a brilliant time writing this fic, even if it turns out that writing 18k of Kyuubei/Tae fic has only made me 18k times more emotionally compromised about Kyuubei/Tae than I was to start with. Thank you very much for reading, and any comments would be appreciated!]


End file.
